The American dream is in decline, and whether or not it ever actually existed is debatable. According to a recent New York Times poll, more Americans report that they are better off than their parents, and they view their chances of moving up the income ladder as better than those in previous generations.

The notion that anyone can grow up to be wealthy and successful as long as they work hard, no matter what class they are born into, is a comforting and coveted American ideal. The evidence however, does not support this, and recent research shows that there is far less movement up and down the income ladder than Americans believe. It suggests a much more sobering reality, where, regardless of how hard you work, your ability to succeed later in life is inextricably tied to the economic circumstances surrounding you at birth.

To clarify, class in this article refers strictly to socio-economic class, which is generally divided by income. And while the suggestion is not that income and the pursuit of wealth are paramount in life, the pursuit of an adequate income to support yourself and your family is certainly a worthy goal no matter what country you reside in.

Ironically enough, this dream that we hold up as our own more accurately describes a number of other countries.

Income-mobility is higher in Canada and a number of Scandinavian countries than in the US, and in our “land of opportunity” you are just as likely to move up as someone in Britain or France.

But perhaps most telling is the evidence found by a recent Cambridge University study that show a child’s economic background to be a better predictor of academic performance in the US than in countries like Denmark, the Netherlands and France.

Wealth confers a number of advantages – access to better healthcare which leads to better health, including a decreased likelihood of heart attack, disease, strokes & cancer, all of which add up to a longer life. However, these are all secondary to the distinct advantage in education. Unsurprisingly, public schools, funded largely by local property taxes, are much better in wealthy areas. Not to mention the quality of private school, but paying thousands of dollars a year for an education before college is beyond the means of most parents in the US. This is not to say that the wealthy and their children do not work hard – that is not the myth. The myth of our meritocracy is that these people are competing with all the other hard working Americans, and that is simply not true. The wealthy are largely competing against themselves; for admission into the best schools, the best colleges, and later on, the best jobs. For most people, no amount of hard work is going to overcome their economic disadvantage.

Granted, college is not everything, and neither is economic well-being at birth. There are certainly cases of those who started poor and became wealthy, and those who skipped college altogether and went on to become the richest people in the world. But we hear these stories precisely because they are the exception, not the norm. By and large, you will end up in roughly the same class as your parents. Research by University of Michigan Professor Gary Solon shows the correlation between the incomes of fathers and sons is higher in the US than in Germany, Canada, Sweden and Finland.

This is not to say that the situation is hopeless. But, if we are to ascribe to the idea of a society based on merit and hard work, we should at least also strive to make that ideal realistically attainable. Most of us accept the American dream so long as those on the bottom have the same chance of ending up on top as those who started there, but that is not the case today.

There are things that can be done. Read the New York Times “Class Matters” series. It provides a very insightful look into class in America. Find out about the people you vote for, because they have a huge impact on education funding or the lack thereof. We have heard for years that the education system is grossly under funded, and now, with extended conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan costing billions of dollars a year, our schools and other social welfare programs get an even smaller piece of the pie. Studies have shown that there is greater income mobility in certain areas, so when we do finally get our priorities straight, we may find that the American dream still exists. We simply have to look outside of America to find it.